The Notepad looks like an everyday yellow legal pad of paper, however each line of each page of the notepad is constructed of micro-printed text and contains the personal details of Iraqi civilian casualties. Each printed edition of 100 notepads is covertly distributed to the United States Congress. Once in circulation on Capital Hill each notepad then acts as a Trojan horse - slipping the unwanted and unacknowledged civilian body count data into official governmental archives.
Full Description
The Notepad is an act of protest and commemoration disguised as a stack of ordinary yellow legal pads. Each ruled line, when magnified, is revealed to be microprinted text enumerating the full names, dates, and locations of each Iraqi civilian death on record over the first three years of the Iraq War. The designers imagine each printed edition of 100 notepads, meant to be covertly distributed to US representatives and senators, as a sort of Trojan horse, injecting transgressive data straight into the halls of power and memorializing it in official archives. SWAMP is now working on a new edition that takes into account the American incursion into Afghanistan; with the disclosure of confidential information by WikiLeaks, the designers plan to continue updating the project.
Work metadata
- Year Created: 2011
- Submitted to ArtBase: Wednesday Aug 3rd, 2011
- Original Url: http://swamp.nu/projects/notepad
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Work Credits:
- mattkenyon2, primary creator
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